Primary Spontaneous Tumors of the Uterus in Mice: With a Review of the Comparative Pathology of Uterine Neoplasms. Studies on the Incidence and Inherita-Bility of Spontaneous Tumors in Mice. XIX

Abstract

One of the most striking differences between man and other mammals in respect to the comparative pathology of their neoplasms, lies in the great frequency of uterine tumors in the human female. Whereas cancer of the uterus represents one of the commonest of human neoplasms, in all other mammalian species it is a great rarity. The similar discrepancy in the frequency of cancer of the stomach we attempt to explain by differences in the diet or in the preparation of the food (heat, condiments), but the value of such an explanation is reduced when we consider the frequency of human uterine neoplasms. It is accepted that human uterine cancer is relatively more frequent in multiparae than in nulliparae, but most other mammals are much more multiparous than most women. Because of the bearing of this discrepancy on the general problem of cancer etiology, it has seemed worth while, before taking up the mouse uterine cancers specifically, to review the literature on the occurrence of uterine neoplasms in other animals. Bovines : It is often stated that in this species more cases of uterine cancer have been observed than in any other domestic animal. Of 110 cases of malignant tumors in cows compiled by Sticker (1), seventeen or 15.5 per cent arose in the uterus, and this early paper established the view that in cows uterine tumors were by far the most frequent. Later observers have not had the same experience, however. Thus, Trotter (2), in 305 cases of tumors in cattle found only one in the uterus, whereas 222 arose in the liver. Teutschlaender (3) compares these figures with a series of 1062 cases of cancer in the human female, of which 237 were in the uterus. Scholer (4) agrees with Trotter and others as to the infrequency of uterine cancer in cows. Since Sticker's compilation in 1902 of 17 cases, only one other recorded case could be found by Scholer, the case reported in 1912 by Wyssmann. Scholer himself has seen two cases of cylindrical-cell carcinoma of the bovine uterus, with metastases in each case. In an article in 1906, Trotter (5) also described a case of uterine carcinoma, and mentions having observed other cases. However, among 49 cancers in cows observed by Leo Loeb and Jobson (6), none was uterine. Also among 26 tumors in old cows examined by Murray (7) but one was in the uterus, an adeno-carcinoma.